CLAUDE MONET 


AND HIS PAINTINGS 
BY 


MILLIAM H. FULLER 


ed 


—. 


CLAUDE MONET 


Drawn by Theodore Robinson 


f the Century Co.) 


1SS10N O. 


‘* Modern French Masters,” by perm 


(From 


CLAUDE MONET 
AND HIS PAINTINGS 


BY 


WILLIAM H. FULLER 


NEW YORK 
1899 


rae 


ee 


CLAUDE MONET 


Drawn by Theodore Robinson 


(From ‘* Modern French Masters,” by permission of the Century Co.) 


- ~~" 


CLAUDE MONET 


AND 


HIS PAINTINGS 


BY 


Witiuram H. FuLuer 


In 1845 a man walked the streets of Paris 
all day long bearing under his arm a picture 
that he had tried in vain to sell. None of the 
dealers would have it, for why should they buy 
a painting by an artist whose works had been 
rejected at the Salon? They were merchants ; 
their interest in a work of art was measured 
by the profit they could make out of it. The 
bearer of the picture had assured the artist 
that he would find a purchaser for it, and, 
though discouraged, he was unwilling to return 
to Barbizon with the canvas unsold. Happily 
he remembered that Baroilhet—the famous 

5 


barytone—was a friend and, in a modest way, 
a patron of art. He called upon Baroilhet, 
showed him the picture, and exclaimed: “I 
offer you a good bargain, and a masterpiece. 
You can pay, in two installments, two hundred 
and fifty francs amonth.” The man was Jules 
Dupré, and the masterpiece that the singer 
bought was the “ Hoar Frost” of Théodore 
Rousseau.* So too in 1859, when Millet 
painted “The Angelus,” neither dealer nor 
amateur was eager to possess it ; and yet thirty 
years afterwards, representatives of great gal- 
leries in Europe and dealers on both conti- 
nents battled for it at public auction in Paris, 
till it was knocked down to the buyer for over 
five hundred and fifty thousand francs, These 
are not isolated examples. They are cited 
because both these well-known pictures after- 
wards came to America, and one of them has 
found a permanent home in Mr. Walters’ gal- 
lery at Baltimore. It was quite the same in 
the time of Rembrandt and Ruysdael and 
Frans Hals. ‘The Rembrandts, which we 
recognize as so mighty to-day, whose posses- 
sion represents so much money, were to be 
had, even when his name and fame were known, 


* Albert Wolff : ‘“‘Cent Chefs d’CEuvre.” 
6 


for less than you, my pupils, would accept for 
any study of yours.”* All these men at times 
painted masterpieces; but it took more than a 
hundred years to find it out. The pictures 
themselves had not changed, except for the 
worse, but public opinion had changed. On the 
other hand, as we know, many paintings that 
were the delight of dealers and connoisseurs of 
former generations are the derision of our own. 
And so with all this changing opinion about 
art in the past, can we be absolutely sure that 
the judgments of to-day will not be reversed 
by wiser appreciations to-morrow ? 

At the present time, and for many years 
past, both in France and America, the paint- 
ers of 1830 have justly been held in high re- 
pute. Every collector nowadays thinks he 
must have some samples of the school; while 
as for the masterpieces, they are so few that 
he is a fortunate person who is able to 
own even one. But so authoritative are the 
names of these great men, that the public 
has easily been beguiled into purchasing 
very commonplace, if not indeed spurious, 
examples of their work, in preference to far 
better paintings by comparatively unknown 


* John La Farge: “ Considerations on Painting.” 
7 


men. And yet there are those who have the 
hardihood to believe that even the Barbizon 
masters have not said the last word in land- 
scape art and closed the book; that in our 
own generation a new and great landscape 
painter has appeared in France, whose work 
has already exercised a powerful influence upon 
the art of the present day, and is destined to 
still more distinguished rank in the future. 
So far as official recognition is concerned, he 
is the legitimate successor of Théodore Rous- 
seau and Puvis de Chavannes. Like them he 
has endured the hostility of dealers and critics 
as well as the condemnation of the Institute ; 
like them he has lived to see the reversal of 
an ignorant and hostile judgment ; and in his 
mature years has begun to enjoy the fruits of 
comparative renown. In England, where stub- 
born conservatism extends even to matters 
of art, the dealers have not yet bestowed 
upon Claude Monet the honor of a passing 
recognition. In Paris and in America, most 
of them began by treating his pictures with 
hilarious contempt. Afterwards, when they 
found that his friends were multiplying and 
were actually buying his paintings, they 
changed their attitude to one of patronizing 
8 


tolerance that was more insulting than open 
scorn. But these years of strife, which would 
have crushed a weaker man, only stimulated 
Monet to renewed efforts to express with 
greater fidelity his artistic convictions. All 
that he was, all that he hoped to be, was dedi- 
cated to the representation of nature as he 
knew her, without the fear or the favor of man. 
Whether his reputation is ephemeral or endur- 
ing, friend and foe alike must award Monet 
this meed of praise—that he has never sacri- 
ficed his self-respect for popular applause nor 
bartered his art for gold. 


Claude Monet was bornin Paris, November 
14, 1840. His youth was spent at Havre, 
where his father was a well-to-do merchant. 
From boyhood he had a predilection for draw- 
ing and painting, which his parents discour- 
aged because they wanted him to go into busi- 
ness. Their admonitions, however, made very 
little impression upon his mind. But one day 
they thought their hope would be realized. 
Their son had been drawn in the conscription 
for seven years’ service in Algiers in the First 
Regiment of the Chasseurs d’Afrique. They 
believed that this new life of a soldier would 

9 


cure him of his folly. But when young Monet 
reached Algiers, he was so charmed with the 
country that his purpose to become a painter 
was confirmed. After a short time he con- 
tracted a fever which brought him almost to 
death’s door. He was sent home on a fur- 
lough. His parents were so glad to have him 
back that they purchased a military substi- 
tute, and allowed him to pursue his own 
chosen career. Claude was then twenty-two 
years old. 

While at Havre Monet formed the acquaint- 
ance of Eugéne Boudin, the sailor and painter 
of ships and harbors and other subjects con- 
nected with the sea. It was Boudin who first 
advised Monet to paint his pictures wholly in 
the openair. But, like most beginners, Monet 
thought he ought to have some great master 
teach him how to paint. ‘So he went to Paris 
in 1863 and entered the studio of the classical 
painter, Charles Gabriel Gleyre. The first 
week that Monet was there opened his eyes. 
His master, while correcting his drawing from 
the model, remarked : 

“Young man, that is pretty good, but too 
much in the character of the living model. 


You have before you a thickset man, and you 
Io 


draw him thickset. When you draw the 
human form, you must think of the Antique.” 

Inasmuch as Monet’s purpose was to learn 
how to draw, he could not understand why he 
should be directed to appeal to his memory of 
something else to enable him to perform his 
task. If it were his master’s object to have 
the drawing look like an antique, why have a 
living model ? 

Two or three weeks were about all that 
Monet could stand of that kind of instruction, 
and he soon persuaded his fellow-students, 
Renoir and Sisley, to leave with him the 
“accursed place.” 

Two years afterwards (1865), Monet sent 
his first picture to the Salon; it was accepted. 
The following year also his pictures were ad- 
mitted. They were well hung, and were well 
received by the artists and critics. In 1867 he 
sent to the Salon ‘“‘The Port of Honfleur” 
and “ Young Women in the Garden.” Both 
were refused. In 1868 he sent a large interior, 
‘‘Le Déjeuner,” and that was refused. The 
same results followed in 1869 and 1870. The 
reason assigned for the rejection of Monet's 
pictures was, that it was dangerous to encour- 
age a man of his tendencies; that to do so 

Il 


would be the end of art—the Grand Art! 
Monet then waited ten years, and in 1880 
sent to the Salon the superb “Les Glagons 
sur la Seine”—now owned by Mr. H. O. 
Havemeyer—and this picture was declined. 
“Tt was pretty hard,” the painter said, ‘but 
what is one todo?” The doors of the Salon 
were absolutely closed to his work. The in- 
dignity of 1880, however, was the last that he 
received from the gentlemen of the Institute. 
He has never since sent a picture to the Salon. 

During the fifteen years that elapsed since 
the acceptance of Monet’s picture in 1865 to the 
rejection in 1880, all the men of the so-called 
Barbizon School, except Dupré, had passed 
away. Troyon had died in 1865; Rousseau in 
1867 ; Corot and Millet in 1875 ; Diaz in 1876, 
and Daubigny in 1878. Had Monet been 
willing to become their follower and imitator, 
doubtless he would have attained some sort of 
success. But he was a born leader, as he was 
a born painter, and no consideration of per- 
sonal advancement could swerve him one 
hair’s breadth from the path he had marked 
out for himself the day he left behind him the 
benumbing influences of Gleyre for the teach- 
ings of nature and the light of day. He took 

12 


Boudin’s advice, and ever afterwards painted 
his pictures in the openair. Inthe beginning 
he did a little in the way of caricature—an art 
which his friend Daumier raised to such dis- 
tinction—but it was landscape that he most 
delighted to paint. He cared very little for 
portraiture or for figure subjects, although 
sometimes he introduced figures into his land- 
scapes for the purpose of giving them a note of 
human interest, in contrast to Corot’s nymphs, 
which seemed to be used as a device for im- 
parting to his subjects a pseudo-classical spirit. 


Monet’s method of work is simple. He 
uses canvases that are very smooth and very 
white. He sketches his subjects in charcoal, 
then rapidly lays in the colors until he has 
secured the general aspect of the scene, after 
which he proceeds with the greatest care until 
the altered conditions of light warn him to 
desist. The canvas is then put aside for 
another day with similar conditions, when he 
resumes his work. This process he continues 
until his picture is finished. He frequently 
paints the same subject many times, and these 
varied paintings are known as Monet’s “series” 
—as, for example, ‘The Haystacks,” ‘“ Float- 

13 


inralce, He Etretat,” “ Pourville,” “ Antibes,” 
“ Belle Isle,” “Le Petit Creuse,” “ The Tulips 
of Holland,” ‘The Rouen Cathedrals,” and 
many more—and yet in every series no two 
pictures are alike. I suppose he has painted 
‘The Haystacks,” one of his most famous sub- 
jects, at least twenty times. They stood ina 
neighbor’s field close to Monet’s house. He 
began to paint them when they were first made. 
He portrayed them in summer, in the autumn, 
and in winter; in the morning, at noon, and 
at twilight; sometimes sparkling with dew, 
sometimes enveloped in fog, sometimes cov- 
ered with frost, sometimes laden with snow; 
and though each picture was different from all 
the rest, one scarcely knew which to choose, 
they were all so true and beautiful. 

It was the same with the “Cathedrals.” 
Monet spent two successive winters at Rouen 
painting that series; and while it is his favor- 
ite, and is considered by him his finest work, 
it is probably the one least understood or 
cared for by the public. They suppose that 
Monet was trying, with little success, to paint 
curious architectural forms; but in fact, his 
object was to render the marvelous play of 
light and color which different conditions of 

14 


atmosphere and time of day produce upon the 
Cathedral’s imposing facade. 

The manner of painting nature that Monet 
has adopted discloses an absolute sincerity of 
purpose in his art, and, besides, reveals to us 
many a hidden charm which has been passed 
unnoticed by less sensitive and observant 
eyes. Moreover, the limitations he has imposed 
upon himself involve a prodigious amount of 
labor, and, it may be added, some failures as 
well. But these failures are never taken up, 
revised, and finished in a studio, and then 
offered for sale. Last summer he made a 
bonfire of a lot of unfinished paintings which 
he thought were not worthy of hisname. But 
when he has been able to finish his pictures as 
he likes ; when he has fully expressed all that 
he saw and felt in the beginning, what a splen- 
did success he attains! The little group of 
paintings in this exhibition fairly represents 
his finished work. And what a revelation of 
nature, what a variety of subject, what a dis- 
play of one man’s power! Fill the room with 
the works of any single painter of the Barbizon 
School and see if they will cover as wide a 
range, be as true to nature, as free from mo- 
notony, and of as high an average excellence, 

15 


as these pictures by Claude Monet. When we 
think of the work of Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, 
Daubigny, or Dupré, there instantly occurs to 
our minds a certain type of landscape which 
each painted. But what picture in this collec- 
tion will stand for the perfect, full-rounded art 
of Monet? In one we see the delicacy and 
charm of Corot, with an added splendor of ~ 
color that Corot never used; in another, the 
sweep and vigor of Courbet, but with finer 
movement and more glorious light. Nay, at 
his best, has Courbet ever painted anything 
to compare with the flashing sunlight and the 
whitecapped waters that break upon the rocks 
of Belle Isle ? | 

It may be interesting, perhaps, to look at | 
some of these pictures a little in detail. 
Here is Octave Mirbeau’s description of one: 

“First a field of oats of a pale green, almost 
colorless under the ardent midday sun; alittle 
path across it like aribbon of gold; then some 
thick wheat almost ripe rises up like a wall, 
and behind the wheat little tree tops of a deep 
green color. You see it is nothing, but it is a 
grand picture. All this bit of nature breathes 
a silence, a tranquility, the heaviness of sum- 
mer heat.” 

16 


Look at another. At the first glance it may 
not be as fully understood as the picture just 
described. But study it a bit. There has 
been a storm. All day long the waves have 
been surging and breaking upon the rocky 
shore. Now the wind is dying out and the 
sea is becoming calm. The red sun is strug- 
gling through a bank of sullen clouds, appar- 
ently shorn of its power, as it slowly sinks to 
the horizon ; but it still flings its radiance across 
the dome of the sky, from which are reflected 
the colors and the light that fall upon the rest- 
less, foam-covered waters below. In the mid- 
dle distance, with its flying buttress and its 
half-submerged cathedral spire, grim in its 
solitude, stands the dark, impressive cliff of 
Etretat. Unique in composition, splendid in 
color, suggestive in sentiment, Monet has 
painted in this picture one of the most tran- 
sient as well as one of the most beautiful 
phases of the glory of the sky and sea. 

Take another—“ Morning at Antibes.” Do 
not fully accept your first impressions. It 
will grow upon you. Observe how skillfully 
the picture has been composed; notice also 
the purity and the harmony of the colors; 
see how finely drawn are the wide-spreading 

2 17 


branches of the tree in the foreground, through 
which we catch glimpses of the pale blue 
receding sky. Under it, like an opal, lie 
the waters of the bay, tremulous with light. 
On the farther shore the distant hills are 
tinged with the first flush of morning light, 
while at their feet, like an enchanted city, 
sleeps the old fortress of Antibes. In concep- 
tion and in rendering this picture is the em- 
bodiment of all the poetry, all the beauty, and 
all the mystery of the Dawn. 

Of the ‘‘ Haystack Series,” two of the most 
lovely examples are shown in this exhibition. 
Each picture possesses a distinct charm of its 
own, arising from the particular time of the 
morning at which it was painted. It was not 
the ordinary aspect of haystack and field, 
ploughed furrow and the distant hillside, that 
charmed the painter, but the whole landscape, 
enveloped and unified by the exquisite lace- 
work of the frost—this it was that evoked the 
marvels of hisbrush. He saw thescene covered 
with a white transparent veil that lightly lay 
upon the bosom of the earth ; nay, more, he saw 
the lace-work of frost and the misty morning 
air all lighted up and warmed by the ra- 


diance of the rising sun reflected from the 
18 


arches of the sky. In these two paintings 
Monet has portrayed with wonderful real- 
ism two transitory aspects of early morning 
(closely related, but different) with schemes 
of color that are as delicate as the petals of a 
rose, 

Two years ago I went to Rouen to see the 
old Cathedral, mainly because it had been 
painted by Monet. The weather was fine, and 
every time-worn statue and _ lichen-covered 
stone in the facade stood out in sharp relief in 
the clear atmosphere of a cloudless summer 
day. As I stood before the great edifice, I 
appreciated in some degree the difficulty 
Monet must have had in attempting to give it 
pictorial representation. Indeed it seemed to 
me to be an impossible task. Low, squalid 
buildings had crowded themselves close to it 
on every side except the front, from which a 
plaza extended some three or four hundred 
feet to one of the principal streets. But the 
facade which I beheld that day was not the 
facade that had inspired Monet. He saw it 
under totally different conditions of atmos- 
phere and light from mine. In none of his 
pictures that I have seen has he represented 
the entire front of the Cathedral ; in every in- 

ag 


stance he has chosen certain portions only 
to portray. In the one in this collection, 
he has selected the great central part of the 
facade and a section of the tower on its left. 
The time is early morning. The front is seen 
in shadow, like an apparition in the mist, 
clothed in wondrous shades of blue. The 
mysterious triple portals, like great grottoes of 
the sea, are faintly illumined by some unknown 
light within. The grand, imposing tower— 
the dominant feature of the picture—rears its 
head to unknown heights out of an envelop- 
ing fog which the warm, invading sunshine is 
slowly driving away. Everywhere details are 
swallowed up; only massive forms are re- 
vealed; proportions are magnified, and strange, 
phantasmal objects are disclosed through the 
myriad prisms of the vaporous air. Some of 
them have the solidity of an earthly structure, 
while others are as ethereal as the visions of a 
dream. What we see in this picture was, in 
fact, Monet’s vision. In the deep shadows 
are the tones of sapphire; in the higher lights 
those of pale turquoise; along the illumined 
sides of the tower the glow of amber; while 
in the morning sky the hidden fires of the 


opal slumber, In my observation, no painter 
20 


of his time has ever before produced a pic- 
ture so full of mystery and poetic feeling, ex- 
pressed with such subdued splendor of color 
and with such impressive vigor, as this example 


of “ The Cathedrals of Rouen.” 


Turning to the general aspect of Monet’s 
works, it must first of all be said that his 
paintings are the expression of a sensitive, 
original, and forceful personality. And in 
every branch of art what is there that gives it 
value but the individuality of man? Great 
artists are revealed through their paintings. 
Clever fingers may copy their processes with 
wonderful fidelity, but they cannot take the 
place of a creative brain. In his sphere of art 
Monet is a creator. He sees nature in his 
own way and he paints her with a method of 
his own. No trace of another artist’s influence 
destroys the individuality of his work. When 
he begins a picture he never thinks how Dau- 
bigny, Rousseau, or any other famous land- 
scape painter would have represented his sub- 
ject, but he paints it in the manner which will 
present most vividly his impression of the 
beauty, poetry, or grandeur of the scene. 
Fortunately for the integrity of his art, Monet 


21 


has studied nature far more devotedly than 
he has observed the processes of painting 
employed by any member of the Barbizon 
School. The result is that his pictures are 
original in expression ; they are vibrant with 
life, and full of the qualities of a sincere and 
highly gifted man. 

Moreover, every picture that Monet paints 
is distinguished, among other qualities, for its 
pictorial unity. He sees nature syntheti- 
cally ; he paints it pictorially. Indeed, the 
true function of a landscape painter is to ex- 
press the noble truths of nature, rather than 
to record the mere physical facts that he sees 
before him. This, at least, is Monet’s method 
of interpretation. His landscapes, therefore, 
possess the potent charm of simplicity and 
dignity unmarred by perplexing details. Nor 
is this pictorial quality the result of a lucky 
accident or a happy choice of subject. Na- 
ture never presents to an artist a perfectly 
completed picture, leaving to him the simple 
task of copying it on his canvas. The fund 
of material that she furnishes is exhaustless, 
but the use which the artist makes of it de- 
termines the value of his performance. When 
Monet paints a landscape he keeps steadily in 

22 


view the dominant motive of his picture, to 
which all minor details are made subordinate. 
These serve a useful part, it is true, but it 
is one of appropriate contribution to enhance 
the value of the work asa whole. To secure 
this result he knows what to leave out—a 
rare virtue in landscape art—as well as what 
to emphasize in his picture. This method of 
treatment involves an intelligent comprehen- 
sion of his subject, an easy command of his 
brush, an orderly and artistic arrangement of 
the various parts of his picture, and calls into 
play one of the highest and most pleasurable 
functions of the human mind. In his early 
life, as he once remarked to me, he often 
completed a canvas at a single sitting; ‘but 
now,” he modestly added, ‘‘I am more exact- 
ing, and it takes a long time for me to finish 
a picture.” In his efforts to realize the com- 
plete pictorial aspect of his subject, Monet 
does not neglect the truthful portrayal of any 
object that forms a constituent part of his 
work. Test it by the pictures in this exhibi- 
tion. Run your eye over them with a little 
care and note with what wonderful fidelity he 
has painted water, snow, ice, fields of grain, 
rocks, fog, sunshine, atmosphere, mist, break- 
23 


ing waves, fleeing clouds, and the bending 
sky. But in all this wonderful variety of sub- 
jects one lovely phase of nature is missed. 
When I asked Monet if he had ever painted 
a moonlight picture, he said : 

“TI greatly admire moonlights, and from 
time to time have made studies of them; but 
I have never finished any of these studies be- 
cause I found it so difficult to paint nature at 
night. Some day, however, I may finish such 
a picture,” 

But if Monet has failed thus far in painting 
to his own satisfaction this enchanting appear- 
ance of the sky at night, he has succeeded in 
portraying with marvelous exactness the varied 
manifestations of the sky by day. Certainly one 
of the most difficult things in nature to paint is 
the changeable morning or evening sky. Still 
more difficult is it to paint this subject in har- 
monious relation to a particular landscape or 
sea. But Monet’s pictures, almost without ex- 
ception, show how successfully this work has 
been performed. There are many other things 
besides clouds and skies that are difficult to 
paint, and yet Monet has portrayed them with 
equal fidelity and power. Notice, for example, 
his painting of water. As he represents it, his 

24 


water is never thick, pasty, or dry. On the con- 
trary, it is liquid, transparent, full of local color, 
and wet. At times it has an exquisite lim- 
pidity in repose, while at others it has motion, 
sparkle, and life, compared with which Cour- 
bet’s celebrated ‘‘ Wave” is sculptured ice, and 
Dupré’s muddy marines too often a travesty 
of the actual sea. 

Another charm about Monet’s work is his 
atmosphere and light. His pictures are filled 
with an atmosphere that we can breathe, and 
with the real light of day—that beneficent 
light which greets us in the morning and con- 
tinues till the evening hour ; that all-pervading 
light which is diffused according to nature’s 
laws, instead of the laws of studio creation. 
Nowhere, therefore, will you find in his work 
patches of color representing the high lights 
of a picture placed in the midst of an impos- 
sible gloom. He sees nowhere in nature the 
forced and violent contrasts of light and shade 
which are found in so many celebrated land- 
scapes of former schools. The example which 
Monet has set in this respect has not been 
without influence in the landscape painting of 
the present day. Go where you will, in all 
modern exhibitions you will find a noticeable 

25 


change in the pitch of light compared with the 
dark and heavy colors of a generation ago. 
To Claude Monet more than to any other 
living painter this welcome change is due. 
Monet’s own temperament lends a joyous 
vitality to his pictures. To him nature is 
not sad even in the robes of winter, but is 
full of exuberant life and beauty. He sees 
her often in a poetic aspect, and always as a 
alover. The sorrows and the ugly things of 
earth find no interpreter in him. The talis- 
manic words of his art are Truth, Light, and 
Beauty. 

It has been frequently urged, with an insist- 
ence more vehement than wise, that Monet 
paints phases of nature with which we are not 
familiar, and that therefore his representations 
are untrue. To which it may be replied that 
our beloved future fellow-citizen of the Philip- 
pines has never seen snow, nor the Laplander 
June roses. The illustration is rather far- 
fetched, but it will do. The fact is, most men, 
and possibly some critics, know very little 
about nature, except in those ordinary condi- 
tions which have to do with the comforts or 
discomforts of their daily lives. And yet, with 


serene confidence in their own experience, and 
26 


totally ignorant of the purpose of the artist, 
they do not hesitate to condemn as untrue the 
works of a man who has spent his whole ma- 
ture life in a profound study of nature in all 
her moods, who stands face to face with her, 
brush in hand, ready to record the pictorial 
impression which a particular scene has made 
upon his mind. 

Another set of critics, more numerous and 
perhaps more voluble, condemn Monet be- 
cause they say he is an Impressionist. Just 
what they mean by this term isa little difficult 
to understand, mainly because those who use 
it do not know what they mean themselves. 
If by ‘impressionist ” they mean a man who 
paints nature hastily, vaguely, crudely, with 
only ‘a slight, indistinct remembrance,” then 
in Monet’s case nothing could be farther from 
the truth. If, on the other hand, they mean 
‘‘a man who relies upon his immediate impres- 
sions to reproduce a scene in nature vividly 
and truthfully,” then Monet is the very prince 
of impressionists. But if, without any knowl- 
edge of the rightful meaning of the term they 
employ, they simply wish to indicate that he 
paints nature ina manner different from that in 
which they have been used to seeing it painted, 

27 


then it must be admitted that the charge is 
true. And yet, despite the almost universal 
homage paid to the men of 1830, to say noth- 
ing of famous painters of far older schools, I 
cannot resist the conviction that Monet’s land- 
scapes come nearer to the truthful representa- 
tion of that world in which we live and move 
than many a canvas whose commercial value 
to-day outweighs fifty times its weight in 
gold. In truth no man can paint nature as 
she actually exists. No eye has ever seen the 
infinite variety of forms—-some of them micro- 
scopic—of which nature iscomposed. No eye 
can possibly discern even a fractional part of 
all the subtle glories of color with which the 
world is filled. And even if it could, how 
futile the attempt to express them with such 
things as canvas and pigments and oil and 
brushes—the inadequate implements of the 
artist’s trade! Moreover, if these means were 
entirely adequate to the purpose in hand, selec- 
tion must necessarily be made; and the por- 
trayal of those truths which impress him most 
becomes the artist’s picture. The fact is, all 
landscape painters are ‘“‘ impressionists,” differ- 
ing only in kind and degree according to their 


mental constitution, their manner of painting, 
28 


and the place where their work is performed. 
Corot was an impressionist ; so were Rousseau, 
Daubigny, Dupré and the rest. Ina marked 
degree Millet was one. The late Wyatt 
Eaton, himself an artist, who made many vis- 
its to Barbizon and enjoyed the friendship of 
the great painter, records in his biographical 
sketch of Millet this interesting conversa- 
tion: 

“TI once said to him that he must havea 
remarkable memory to be able to work, as 
was his wont, without nature before him. He 
replied that in that sense he had not, but that 
which touched his heart he retained. In re- 
gard to working from nature he said: ‘I can 
say I have never painted (or worked) from 
nature’; and gave as his reason, ‘xature does 
not pose.” And so Millet, too, painted his 
memories—his vivid impressions of things that 
“touched his heart.” Ruskin says: 

“The function of an artist is to receive a 
strong impression from a scene and then set 
himself as far as possible to reproduce that 
impression on the mind of the spectator of 
his picture.” Turner, who was certainly the 
greatest landscape painter that England has 
produced, was, in the fullness of his powers, 

ay 


constantly painting his impressions. So care- 
ful had been his study of nature and so phe- 
nomenal was his memory that he was able to 
reproduce whole scenes from notes and draw- 
ings made upon the backs of letters or loose 
scraps of paper. Sometimes he wrought in a 
realm of fancy, and gave to the world “ The 
Bay of Baiae,” and ‘“‘ Childe Harold’s Pilgrim- 
age,” in which he epitomized his impressions 
of the historic charm and loveliness of Italian 
scenery. When a fellow artist complained to 
him that upon revisiting Domodossola he had 
found a particular view entirely changed from 
what he had admired before, Turner replied, 
“What, do you not know yet, at your age, 
that you ought to paint your zwpresszons ?” 
If Monet had been asked when and where one 
should paint his impressions, his answer would 
have been, “‘ Paint them on the spot.” 

After all, the real reason for not under- 
standing the works of Monet or any other 
great painter, lies not so much in the artist as 
in ourselves. He represents nature as it ap- 
pears to him. In every subject that he paints 
he has found something which has stirred his 
emotion; something that has touched his soul. 
And yet the thing that inspired his painting 

| 30 


may awaken no response in the breast of an- 
other man. In such acase there has not been 
established a sympathy between the painter 
and the spectator; and unless that exists one 
can never thoroughly appreciate and enjoy 
a picture. The same thing is often true of 
music. How many people are there in the 
whole world who can adequately appreciate 
the works of the great composers? Andisa 
great musician any the less a great artist if 
because of duller ears his music fails to strike 
a sympathetic chord? John La Farge admir- 
ably says: ‘The work of art may remain 
silent to many, even to those who understand 
it more or less. It is an appeal to another 
mind, and it cannot draw out more than that 
mind contains.” But even if there were this 
natural receptivity on our part, many of us 
are prejudiced at the outset by an antecedent 
training as to landscape painting with which 
the works of Claude Monet are not in accord. 
All our lives we have been looking at land- 
scapes through the spectacles of the famous 
painters of the past. We look at new pictures 
and (unconsciously) compare them with im- 
pressions of the works of the Dutch or Flem- 
ish masters, or perhaps with our remembrances 
31 


of the Early English or the Barbizon School. 
Rarely, if ever, do we compare them with our 
recollection of nature itself, and when we sub- 
ject Monet's paintings to this perfect stand- 
ard what a world of truth and beauty they 
reveal. 

The life which Monet has lived has unques- 
tionably exercised a powerful influence upon 
his choice of subjects and his method of paint- 
ing; moreover, it explains the truth and 
wonderful vitality with which his pictures are 
filled. ‘Although born in Havre,” he has 
said, ‘‘I have always lived in the country or 
on the sea-coast, except from 1864 to 1866, 
when I had a studio in Paris. Since 1883 I 
have lived at Giverny on the Seine.” Fifty 
years in the country! Half a century in the 
presence of scenes which became as familiar 
to him as the face of his mother—this gives 
the keynote, the very inspiration of Monet’s 
art. 

“The son of the land is her seer, and none 
other. He knows her joys, her melancholy 
moods; he is familiar with the face of winter 
on her snow-clad hills, and of spring in the 
nook of her valleys; he alone knows the se- 
crets of the life that has moulded the form of 

32 


every creature of nature on the soil, where as 
a child he has beat the bushes, where asa youth 
he has loved, where as a man he has worked, 
lived, produced and suffered. . . . Since 
all these things speak to him, it is he who must 
tell us what they tell him.” * 

I have quoted these eloquent words of the 
great French writer and critic because they so 
aptly apply to the life and the work of Claude 
Monet. In another part of his book the author 
speaks of the “Impressionists,” and singles 
out Monet for special praise. He says: 

“ Nature is in truth so wide a world that in 
the revolution of ages art will forever find un- 
explored realms and fresh springs of pictorial 
beauty. Action is one of these springs; Ru- 
bens, Eugéne Delacroix, and Corot had already 
drunk of it. In these days, when every outlet 
of energy tends to specializing, the impression- 
ists have made a specialty of the movement of 
coloured masses. Their formula is harsh, sum- 
mary, necessarily rapid, and it appears incom- 
plete; but it is not so, since when the sensa- 
tion of movement is impressed on the spectator, 
their aim is attained; they have nothing more 


* Ernest Chesneau: “The Education of the Artist,” 
p. 49. Translated by Clara Bell, London, 1886. 
3 33 


to say. Within these self-imposed limits they 
have produced some works of prodigious and 
illusory effect; such as ‘Floating Ice on the 
Seine,’ by M. Monet, and his ‘ Spring-time at 
Argenteuil;’ and again his admirable marine 
studies, in which we see for the first time in 
my experience, a living presentment of the 
throbbing, swelling, deeply sighing sea, the 
trickling rills of water that follow a retreating 
wave, the glaucous hues of the deep ocean, the 
violet transparency of the shallows over a sandy 
bottom—all the transient glories of changeful 
colour, all the fairy play of moving light. But 
in spite of such works as these the eye of the 
public—trained to exclusiveness with other, 
and no less legitimate, readings of nature, and 
perverted in a great measure by the abuse of 
facile tricks of painting—refuses as yet to 
recognize the purpose and merit of this school. 
But they will come to it.” * 

Since Ernest Chesneau wrote those words 
more than a decade has passed, freighted with 
the triumphs of Monet’s art. But, within the 
limited range of his observation, Chesneau 
spoke with intelligence, eloquence, and author- 


*Chesneau: “The Education of the Artist,” pp. 
216-17. 
34 


ity. His error lies in confounding Monet with 
other painters—imitators and followers—whom 
he classes as ‘impressionists,’ and whose 
“specialty,” he says, is “the movement of 
coloured masses.” Monet has no “ specialty.” 
On the contrary, the range of his art is as 
wide as his sympathies with nature and his 
power to give them adequate expression. As 
for any “formula” in his treatment of nature, 
he does not know the word. Monet can paint 
“movement” and action with marvelous skill 
if he desires, but that ability is the very thing 
which enables him to suggest by contrast im- 
mobility and repose. Chesneau evidently had 
in mind a very different class of artists from 
the real Monet when he criticised the ‘“ Im- 
pressionists,” and described their purposes and 
limitations. Monet has always suffered from 
being classed with a group of men above whose 
level he towers like a mountain peak. In all 
fairness he must be judged by his own per- 
formances, and by them alone. 

Like every other sympathetic artist, Monet 
has his preferences among those engaged in 
the same calling as himself. Of the men who 
lived and worked at Barbizon he told me he 
most admired Millet; while among other paint- 

35 


ers his favorites were Delacroix, Ingres, Corot, 
Manet, Courbet, Yongkind, Daumier, Renoir, 
Degas, and Chavannes. This is a very differ- 
ent company from those unnamed painters 
whose aim was “‘satisfied ” when they impressed 
‘the sensation of movement” upon the spec- 
tator. And yet, in the main, Chesneau spoke 
with the judgment of an intelligent observer 
and the forecast of a prophet. 

I cannot close this brief and altogether in- 
adequate notice of Monet’s works without re- 
peating his frank, almost pathetic, words con- 
cerning himself : 

“It is not agreeable to talk of one’s self; 
and then upon certain points my memory 
fails. What I do know is, that life with me 
has been a hard struggle, not for myself alone, 
but for my friends as well. And the longer I 
live the more I realize how difficult a thing 
painting is, and in one’s defeat he must pa- 
tiently strive on.” 

Ah, yes, painting grows more and more 
difficult as year by year one’s ideals reach a 
loftier height and demand a nobler interpre- 
tation. For nearly thirty years Monet was 
fighting his own battle, with little to sustain 
him but a stout heart and an absorbing love 

36 


of his art. But now the struggle is ended; 
and in the fullness of his powers the greatest 
landscape painter of the present time enjoys 
the fruits of a well-deserved fame. 


37 


Fait ae 


tea po 
se Sodan ead 


PLOCPrUuRES 


BY 


CLAUDE MONET 


EXHIBITED AT 


fie LOTOS CLUB 


JANUARY, 1899 


COMMITTEE ON ART 


Witiiam T. Evans, Chairman 
Joun ELDERKIN Henry T. CHAPMAN 
WILLIAM JAy IvEs FREDERIC BONNER 
Horatio N. FRASER 
HENRY W. RANGER, Secretary 


Dae dente I 
oo Sar heirs a, 
tae fy 


poe 
=A 


es 


No. 1 


- Owned by Albert Spencer 


x 


No. 2 


~~ AF 


E/ RLY MORNING AT POURVILLE 


one iis SiSt r 


1 


: ‘Owned by Albert Spencer 


No. 4 
THE WHEATFIELD 


Owned by Henry W. Cannon 


No. 5 
BELLE-ISLE 


Owned by A. A. Pope, Cleveland, O. 


No. 6 
HOAR-FROST 


Owned by A. A. Pope, Cleveland, O. 


Z 


FROST BEFORE SUNRISE 


ok 


y James F. Sutton 


db 


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wne 


Ae 3 


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Sat aM - a 

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No. 10 
THE CLIFF AT ETRETAT 


Owned by John G. Johnson, Philadelphia, Pa. 


No. I1 
CATHEDRAL AT ROUEN 


Owned by Thomas E. Kirby 


No. 12 


=~ 


FALAISES A DilPr 


temps gris 


Owned by Cyrus J, Laurence 


No. 13 


WINTER ON THE SEINE 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


No. 14 


AUTUMN ON THE SEINE 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


No. 15 


FLOATING ICE ON THE SEINE 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


No. 16 
SUNSET AT ETRETAT 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


No. 17 
MORNING AT ANTIBES 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


No. 18 
BELLE-ISLE, SUNSHINE 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


No. 19 


PLUM BLOSSOMS 


4 OE aed 


be. 


Owned by W. H. Fuller 


- 


No. 20 


No. 21 


" “Owned by W. H. Fuller 


